


Reciprocity

by lagunaloire



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Divergence (Possibly), Carver and Anders simultaneously trying not to hate each other and trying TO hate each other, Carver-centric POV, Exploration of Canon Dialogue, Hawke left in the Fade, Heavy Angst, Jealousy, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Stream of Consciousness, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Warden Carver Hawke, or idk, while also surviving in the Anderfels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 23:43:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18679705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagunaloire/pseuds/lagunaloire
Summary: For all that Carver's heard of the severity of the Anderfels, of its intemperate climes spanning land and bloody politics alike, he suffers nothing greater in his time there than a single letter from the Frostbacks.He's expecting "Junior" or "Little Hawke" angled smoothly across the first line when he unfolds the vellum, but it just begins "Carver," without the nod to family or to the year he spent sniping over drinks with a dwarf in Kirkwall.It's a taste of what's to come, how Carver's name alone feels like an ending.





	Reciprocity

  **PROLOGUE: ACT I**

Bethany would’ve liked the Warden apostate. He reminds Carver of Father in all the ways Garrett doesn’t, always trying to help despite his means, with tired eyes and healer’s hands and a spine of red steel where his convictions are concerned. Carver might tolerate him too if he just wasn’t so _much_ like Father, pouring all of his attention into Garrett, into mages and magic, and none into Carver, save for when he’s proselytizing about this or that. Politics are where the similarities end, thankfully — politics, and the demon.

Bethany would’ve liked him, fine, but that doesn’t stop Carver from drawing the line when Anders offers his condolences. The Warden doesn’t know enough about her to mourn who Carver’s lost, only that she was some unembittered apostate, as if that’s how Bethany wanted to be remembered when she spent so many nights wishing she were normal, that she didn’t have to embrace her magic like Father or Garrett had, the weight of their joint expectations crushing.

Anders doesn’t understand that — being more afraid of disappointing your own family than anything else, even templars — and never will. Not from talking with Carver’s brother, at least. Garrett hasn’t cared about family opinion since he _became_ the family, since he became _Hawke_ , or the only one of them that mattered in this city, anyhow.

“I was trying to be nice,” Anders explains, palliatively, as though the truth changes anything for Carver, whose twin sister is still dead, broken-bodied and left behind on the outskirts of Lothering.

“Stick to surly,” Carver says, eyes narrowed under Kirkwall’s broiling sunlight, balled fists sweating at his sides. “It works for you.”

The summers here are miserable, but then again, so is the company.

 

* * *

 

Anders isn’t the first one to sidle up to Carver in the hopes of getting closer to Garrett. Peaches was the same way, hovering around as Carver went about his chores in the vain hopes his brother would show up, all bearded and cocksure and still a head taller than Carver at that age. She’d chat his ear off about how handsome Garrett was and how lucky Carver must’ve felt to have a sibling that perfect.

It was hard not to crush the bird feed in his fist as he tended Old Barlin’s chickens then, because it wasn’t _their_ fault no one knew about how Carver didn’t recognize his brother those days, not with Garrett pretending like he was Father, lording over the house as though a beard and seven years made him wiser than Carver or Bethany. He wasn’t perfect, just pompous, but that seemed to be enough for Peaches and people like her, content to eat his overconfidence right up, as hens would cornmeal and seed.

They’re traversing The Wounded Coast when Garrett slides into fresh conversation with the Rivaini, jumping into a crossfire of innuendo not even a second after he’s finished telling Anders a story about how a good force mage can, apparently, shuck the pants right off of a man with a single snap — a feat which Carver hasn’t seen Garrett perform himself, either because it’s a lie or because his brother saves it for when he’s in private, thank the Maker.

It’s a smooth transition, with Isabela asking, “Oh? And what if she’s not wearing pants? What does the big, bad force mage do then, _hm_?” in that deep, curling voice of hers, and then the two of them are off trading awful suggestions that Carver is glad he can’t hear from the back of their retinue.

To his right, Anders stares at the spot between Garrett’s shoulder blades as he falls into step with Carver, bumped out of the dialogue by a pirate with more charm than shirt. Carver pays him little mind because someone has to be on the lookout for trouble in this raider haunt, but he knows that look on Anders’ face. Peaches got the same way when she fell quiet, her thoughts still full with his brother. The soft eyes, soft mouth — Carver’s seen it all before.

Isabela giggles (except that she doesn’t _really_ , because giggles are innocent sounds the like Merrill makes, and _that_ laugh is soaked with something filthy and sharp), and that must make Anders more aware of the stale, boring silence he’s settled into next to Carver, glancing over now, expecting the younger Hawke to throw him a proverbial bone.

He doesn’t.

“Nice day to be planning a trip into the Deep Roads, don’t you think?” Anders ventures. Carver fights back an annoyed huff and turns his gaze to the dry brush hugging the western cliffside. “The Blight, the dampness, the festering darkness filled with tainted rats—“

The vegetation loses his interest before it’s even transferred, and Carver interrupts, “Shut up,” because regardless of what he doesn’t know about the Deep Roads or the Blight or whatever other horrors lurk weeks beneath the surface, what Carver _does_ know is that their family has no choice in the matter. Either they rot in the chokedamp strangling their desiccated pocket of Lowtown or they make a name for themselves, and Carver isn’t going to watch his mother waste away another year in Gamlen’s hovel wishing Bethany were alive.

“You’ve got a real chip on your shoulder, you know,” says Anders, dropping the cordial tone for something more scrutinizing. He’s got a brow lofted, dark eyes slimmed and unsmiling.

Carver thinks he would’ve preferred it Peaches could’ve done this too, ditched the friendly act whenever she didn’t get what she wanted, which was all the time. He can appreciate honesty, at least, even if not its source.

“I’ve got a big blade on my shoulder, magey,” Carver says, unfazed.

“Right,” Anders agrees, picking up pace to join Garrett and Isabela at the front of their formation. The sidelong once-over he shoots Carver is withering as he passes. “Wonder what you’re compensating for.”

 

* * *

 

It’s another day, and this time they’re waiting on the top floor of _The Blooming Rose_. Carver’s lower back presses heavily into the wooden handrail as he counts down the minutes it takes for Garrett and Isabela to get answers out of one of the workers — Jethann, or Jevan, or something like that. He tries not to think on their methods, which is easy enough with all the distractions _The Rose_ has to offer.

In here, the air is ripe with perfume and sweat and sex and alcohol, thick and thrumming with laughter and patrons haggling over rates and someone plucking a lute in the atrium, and amidst the chaos, Carver’s still hoping Faith will walk by again. She knows his name and always smiles a _hello_ to him as if it isn’t the equivalent of having stepped in something foul, and that’s more than Carver can say for most of the people he’s met in the Free Marches.

A few feet down and across from him, Anders leans into the wall, the one separating them from his brother and the pirate and the prostitute. He looks unamused by the way Garrett’s chosen to spend both of their afternoons, but by now he’s stopped pinching the bridge of his nose, so Carver assumes he’s finally accepted that this is how it goes when chasing after his brother: a lot of standing around feeling stupid while someone else has all the fun.

Carver tosses a look over his shoulder, spying on the motley of customers browsing the floor. For a second, he thinks he sees Gamlen’s ruddy figure approach the bar, but Anders’ voice cuts through the din before he can be certain, demanding Carver’s attention reset forward.

“You don’t like me, Carver?”

It’s not a question he was anticipating, though Carver supposes it was inevitable, considering the state of their prior interactions. He finds the Warden’s arms crossed loosely against his chest, blond head tilted a curious inch, and nowhere in him is that cloying friendliness that Carver’s just gotten used to. Now it’s this critical bearing that makes Carver’s fingers tighten defensively around the handrail instead.

“I don’t like you,” Carver repeats, pithy, disinclined to explain how much Anders reminds him of the people he’s known, the way they’d look past him, or worse, look into him just deep enough to get to Garrett. After all, remove his brother from the room, and the warm candor is evidently gone.

Anders doesn’t even blink. He replies, “That’s unfortunate,” and then his chin lifts, and he’d almost be looking down the length of his nose at Carver if the boy wasn’t so damn tall. “Hating someone just because they’re a mage is a shameful thing.”

That gets Carver. Hits him like a stray arc of primal magic to the teeth. His brow cinches lines into his forehead and he doesn’t understand how Anders can press all the wrong points about someone else’s family for weeks and believe the anger which arises from it is about something so bloody _irrelevant_.

Carver says as much, starting, “I don’t hate you because you’re a mage,” while he pushes off the bannister, his knuckles white. “I hate you because you won’t shut _up_ about it.”

There’s something dangerous about the apostate, and it’s not the vengeful spirit that shatters into a blazing blue and white monstrosity whenever times are fraught — Justice is unnerving, yes, but Carver thinks what worries him most is that Anders is a man with nothing left to lose. No family, no home, just the movement that he can’t seem to stop talking about in the gallows or before the clergy or anywhere else he drags his stinking, sewered boots.

So, “Oppression this, templars that,” grouses Carver, because if Anders wants to get locked up for snarking at the wrong helmet or miter, then that’s his business, but Carver isn’t losing another sibling to anything, or anyone. He’ll die before that happens. “I’d heard enough long before you.”

Down the hall, a door flings open, brass handle rattling against the masonry. Carver can’t bring himself to stop glowering back at Anders and look, but he does hear Garrett’s weighty chuckle under the bright clink of Isabela’s jewelry and feels mildly relieved they’ll be wrapping things up soon enough.

Their coming footsteps plunk into the dingy carpet, and over the sound of that, Anders says, “Maybe it’s time you put some thought into it,” each syllable cool, firm. He collects himself from the wall and makes to reunite with the pair without another glance in Carver’s direction, like even that’s a waste of time.

 

* * *

 

Carver’s stupid. Admitting that to others has always been a challenge, but if he’s going to die down here, he can at least be honest with himself.

He’d felt ill since they found Sandal. A bout of nausea, he’d thought, slick as decay and burning in his throat and nose and mouth, and worsened still by a trembling beat against the temples. Dehydration seemed likely then; Bartrand’s fist on the supplies was tighter than his ass was around the stick Varric suggested got lost up there when they were kids, and Carver’s waterskin had been empty for hours.

The feeling didn’t go away when they returned to camp and drank and ate. It sunk dull and disquieting fingers into Carver’s rest and left his bedsheets damp with sweat in the night. The following days didn’t get easier.

In all fairness, he _had_ considered telling Garrett on the off-chance a spell might’ve helped (unlikely, given his brother’s apathy towards healing for most of his life, and asking the _Warden_ for anything was, as always, out of the question), but complaining would’ve only proven Mother right, Carver should’ve stayed home, and that thought alone was worse than some odd stomach bug a hundred times over.

So now he’s slumped useless along Garrett’s side, the hair spanning the back of his brother’s neck damp and coarse against the inside of Carver’s elbow, as he listens to Anders make a case as to why these Wardens should take pity on the boy daft enough to contract the bloody Taint and stay quiet about it for a week.

Carver has doubted the Maker more times than he’d care for his mother to know, but it’s moments like these that lead him to believe their god’s sense of humor is particularly wicked, if it exists. His blood roils and writhes beneath his sweating skin, and Carver swallows the pain, trying to focus on the steadying grip of Garrett’s hand on his flank instead.

“Stroud,” Anders bargains with his fellow Warden, an Orlesian by the sound of him and one who knows the apostate personally, at that. “Trust me when I say this one is worth your time. With the Blight over, you Wardens don’t have recruits lining up.”

Carver’s vision is filmy at best, but he can see the reluctance in Stroud’s face. The man’s mouth is tight and reproachful under the thick wrap of dark hair covering his lip, even as he says, “This is no simple thing, Anders. This may be as much a death sentence as the sickness, and you know it.”

“He’ll die anyway.” Anders is pushing. He’s got that relentless note building in his voice, reminiscent of the kind of closed-fist conviction which seeps out whenever the Circle comes up, or whenever he’s waxing poetic about freedom and the rights of mages. Carver hates being on this side of it, and wonders if it wouldn’t be better to just die than to live on in debt — to him, or Garrett. “Take him and _try_.”

The man, Stroud, sighs a thin breath in lieu of a proper response, brows knitting, and Carver thinks that’s it, then, it’s over, but for whatever reason, Anders refuses to leave it there. Instead, he softens, shoulders dropping to a humble decline, eyes entreating. It’s a shift from his prior tactics, a last-ditch effort Carver doesn’t want him to make and doesn’t want to witness.

“I’m asking you,” says Anders, unsubtle in his request, but sounding sincere enough that it almost doesn’t matter.

And somehow, that does the trick.

“If the boy comes, he comes now.” Stroud doesn’t seem pleased about making an allowance of this magnitude, but Carver can’t be too sorry for him when it feels like his heart’s snaking rusted wire through his veins with every labored beat. “And you may not see him again.”

The few words Stroud spares have a force behind them that reminds Carver of his commanding officer at Ostagar, Varel, a man hacked down by three hurlocks not an hour into the fight, and the fever-bent nostalgia that connection summons distracts Carver from the grim terms Stroud is laying down. He might not have noticed at all if Garrett’s fingers weren’t curling harder into his side now, as if afraid to let go.

“Being a Grey Warden is not a cure,” Stroud asserts, bluntly. “It is a calling.”

More enigmatic rubbish. Carver’s mouth is dry and thick with the taste of metal, but he wishes someone would just tell him what that’s all supposed to _mean_ , because if becoming a Grey Warden helps him survive this mess, then it sounds like a cure to him. He glances up at his brother for answers, and there’s a familiar ache in his neck that Carver hasn’t felt since he was fifteen and about to hit his second growth spurt.

“Are you sure about this?” Carver asks, exhaustion wearing his voice thin.

“I’m not sure about anything,” Garrett admits, brow knit and casting shadows across his eyes. He’s grown pale, but whether that’s because he’s worried or because his skin hasn’t seen the sun in weeks, Carver can’t tell. “But I want you to live.”

That didn’t seem the case when Carver departed for Ostagar. Garrett had been the only one who didn’t say goodbye, just stood in the corner of their rickety old home, arms crossed, as stone-faced as Father the days Carver made Mother worry by staying out long past sundown. So Carver doesn’t recognize the doubt in Garrett’s baritone now, or the anxious creases in his forehead, and it’s the oddest feeling, like he’s about to give his farewells to a stranger he already misses, one he would’ve liked to know.

Carver’s still trying to find the semblances of his brother in this person when Stroud says, “We must move quickly if we are to make the surface in time.” The Wardens in his cohort acquiesce, reorienting themselves without objection. One shoves a map into his tasset, rendered unnecessary by this turn of events, and begins back down the path they came from, following the trail of darkspawn they’ve left crushed in their wake.

“Then, I guess this is it,” says Carver, voice soft with an obsolesced hope that things could’ve been different — that he could’ve helped, not _be_ helped, for once. “Take care of Mother.”

Garrett doesn’t reply save for a nod. There’s no more time for talk, not with Stroud waiting to relieve Carver’s brother of the burden slung across his shoulders. Stroud takes Carver by the other arm and crosses his nape with it, a hand gripping hard onto the back of Carver’s belt as Garrett loans the Warden his brother’s weight.

Somewhere in the transfer, Carver remembers his legs and tries not to seem so useless as Stroud urges him forward. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first half of a prologue to a massive slow-burn i'm working on. if you didn't read the tags, the majority of the story will be anchored in the inquisition timeframe, not da2. the reason behind the prologue is to elaborate on why anders and carver have the dynamic that they have, especially since carver's mentality is so wildly misinterpreted by the fandom despite his forthcoming nature re: his emotional hangups. as a warden, carver's attitude towards anders is complicated, but it's not without 1) a beleaguered sense of gratitude or 2) a certain amount of common ground, given how carver expands his horizons. 
> 
> but regardless, they have good chemistry and the potential for wangst between them is limitless because of their miscommunications, projections, etc. in this essay, i will


End file.
